By Gina Phillips
Located in New Orleans, LA
CROW VALLEY JFG EXHIBITION STATEMENT:
Last summer, I was awarded a residency based in Briant, a small village located in the Brionnais region of France. I spent a week in Paris before the residency began. I filled my days visiting museums, paying close attention to Impressionist, Post-Impressionist/Synthetist masterpieces; especially certain works by Paul Gauguin and Paul Serusier.
I rented a car and drove out of Paris, headed to Briant. My goal was to spend my time in Brionnais painting landscapes, en plein air. I had never driven in a foreign country before, so I was a bit nervous at first. But after a couple of hours, I veered off onto the back roads and was awestruck by the seemingly never-ending, breathtaking vistas. There were amazing compositions to be had just about any direction I looked. Before long, I was feeling one with the tiny Citroen I was driving, and I was thoroughly enjoying zipping around the hilly landscapes dotted with fluffy white Charolais cattle, stone fences and villages anchored by Romanesque churches.
I quickly settled into a routine; waking early, drinking tea with Julie (founder of the residency, Incident res), and then heading out to drive around the nearby countryside to find a spot to paint. It had been a few years since I painted landscapes from observation, and I was worried I might be a little rusty. But as soon as I started painting, I felt a meditative attunement in the process of capturing the scenes before me.
I was surprised to find striking similarities between the farmland of Brionnais and the farmland surrounding my Central Kentucky home; the rolling hills, pastures divided by stone fencing and gravel lanes lined with gnarly trees growing into barbed wire fencerows.
Last fall, I went home to Madison County, Kentucky and continued the series. This was a bittersweet time for me, because my grandfather, Sterling Moberly, was in failing health. Pawpaw and I were motorcycle riding buddies when I was in my early twenties. He would chart our course, traversing miles of backroads. The landscape was characterized by big black tobacco barns...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings
